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oxide7 writes "An underwater three-dimensional map of the oil spill is closer to becoming a reality, now that the US has for the first time confirmed the discovery of a subsurface oil plume resulting from the ruptured BP well. The government agency in charge of ocean science has received the first of several expected reports from university investigators aboard research ships detailing specific locations where oil has been found below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. The government, which denied reports of giant underwater oil plumes in mid-May, said researchers at the time had not confirmed the presence of conglomerated oil." The New York Times talked with scientists on a two-week mission in the Gulf and reported them "awed" at the size and density of the underwater plume.

This is such a disaster. Someone please provide links: I know that even now after the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska there is ongoing environmental damage and hardship for the people who live in the area. From that example, speculate on what will happen in the Gulf.

The US still has the largest economy and most powerful military on the planet.

1) The largest economy doesn't mean that the US are the richest.All of US' value is based on debts, like most of all western countries.

2) the US military is probably not the most powerful, since it is unable to solve conflicts (and to my knowledge, no war ever solved anything), but it's surely the most expensive army.Given the amount of money poured into the US army, I doubt it is as efficient as it could be.

GDP/capita is a pretty stupid way to measure power. Quatar has a GDP/capita of $84,000. Almost double the US. Luxembourg is around 80k. And do remember the US is just the aggregated economies of all the states right.

The states of the United States are not comparable to the member states of the EU. No US state has had foreign relations since 1865. No US state has had a standing army since 1865. While US states do have the National Guard, they are units of the US military, paid for and equipped by the US Federal Government but controlled by the states.

I'll never understand arm-chair petroleum engineers. How easy do you think it is to drive a multi-ton robotic submersible a mile underwater using cameras that don't provide good depth perception to plug a hole spewing oil with a pressure exceeding 5,000 PSI? It can take days just to get the necessary materials down to that depth, let alone the many hours it takes to painstakingly navigate the machinery into place, and that's assuming you don't get too close to the ocean floor because the thrusters will stir up the mud and then you'll have to wait for it to settle so that you can see what you're doing...

Last I checked, Obama doesn't have an engineering degree, and most of the people who do have experience with this kind of thing aren't employed by the Federal government. So I don't understand this desire for a nanny-state government that takes care of everything. If you have a stroke, do you want some Federal bureaucrat doing the brain surgery, or would you rather have a qualified and skilled doctor who has spent his whole life doing brain surgery?

That's not to say that the Feds should just ignore the problem. But there's little more that they can do aside from telling the doctor that he has to perform the surgery. The Feds could buy the equipment to help out, but everyone is so insistent on BP footing the bill. So tell me, exactly what do you expect Obama to do? Wiggle his nose like he's some Genie?

Which doesn't do squat to begin with. Do you really think that the booms are some impervious, permanent barrier to the oil? Even if we assume that we're just trying to stop the oil on top, you do understand that there are waves on the ocean? Current? Wind? All of which conspire to move the booms, and to move oil over and under the booms?

It's like all the people who pointed at the school buses after Katrina and said "Why didn't they just put people in buses and drove them out?" Where exactly would they have been put? Out in a pasture somewhere?

Jindal is a grade-A politician who knows everything about looking busy and nothing about actually solving a problem. Granted, I'm also blaming BP and the Feds for not properly employing booms to corral the oil into an area where it is removed from the water/beach, but still - booms alone aren't the answer.

And yes, this suggestion for booms alone is just Monday-Morning Engineering at its finest: people with no clue, no insight and no information pontificating and assigning blame for a situation in which they have no skin and no responsibility. Even Jindal has no skin in the game, because he can always blame someone else for his hare-brained ideas going wrong.

Boom is not meant to contain or catch oil. Boom is meant to divert oil. Boom must always be at an angle to the prevailing wind-wave action or surface current. Boom, at this angle, must always be layered in a fucking overlapped sort-of way with another string of boom. Boom must always divert oil to a catch basin or other container, from where it can be REMOVED FROM THE FUCKING AREA.

Different types of shoreline, different shapes, require different configurations. Your numerous anchor points (for this spill those would be 1-yard cement blocks with tie-off buoys) need to be chosen so the boom-tenders (you) can adjust the ropes, slanting the booms this way and that to account for changes in wind and current. Booms are tended 24/7, by the way.

You divert to a catch basin. You are not building the fucking Great Wall of China. You are diverting oil so you can then drain it out.

Boom is not meant to contain or catch oil. Boom is meant to divert oil. Boom must always be at an angle to the prevailing wind-wave action or surface current. Boom, at this angle, must always be layered in a fucking overlapped sort-of way with another string of boom. Boom must always divert oil to a catch basin or other container, from where it can be REMOVED FROM THE FUCKING AREA.

Different types of shoreline, different shapes, require different configurations. Your numerous anchor points (for this spill those would be 1-yard cement blocks with tie-off buoys) need to be chosen so the boom-tenders (you) can adjust the ropes, slanting the booms this way and that to account for changes in wind and current. Booms are tended 24/7, by the way.

You divert to a catch basin. You are not building the fucking Great Wall of China. You are diverting oil so you can then drain it out.

So even if the feds had given them all the boom in the world, they still would have fucked up the deployment and made it all worthless anyway.

You know, we spent over 80 billion dollars on homeland security during the year of katrina. This includes FEMA, which was the agency responsible for providing disaster relief for disasters. Hurricanes come every year. Sure Katrina was bad, but their total lack of response for DAYS while people DIED is totally unfuckingacceptable. I mean some third world shithole in asia has a tsunami with hundreds of thousands dead and we had fucking air drops mobilized there the very next day (don't know how true that is,

Even all that ignores the fact that the livelihood of every single person involved in fixing the situation is on the line. And I do mean everyone; having this leak be as bad as it is will hurt the entire oil industry for years to come. BP's stock is down 40% in the past 2 months, there's a moratorium on offshore drilling permits, and public relations for all the oil companies are in the toilet. You don't think that everyone at BP, from the engineers, to the drillers, to the CEO isn't worried about their job right now?

I wouldn't want to be one of their engineers right now, getting blamed for a problem you didn't create (the people in charge of the operation were the ones cutting corners), being told by every Joe Shmoe on the street that fixing the problem is so easy, all the while working 80+ hour weeks in an effort to save not only your job but quite possibly your entire company. But heh, no pressure right?

You don't think that everyone at BP, from the engineers, to the drillers, to the CEO isn't worried about their job right now?

Their job? The CEO is worried about his job? If there were any justice in this world, they should be fearing for their freedom, not just their jobs. I don't mean the man at the bottom of the pile, but those at the top; at the very least they have shown criminal negligence, and the punishment should be proportional to the damage they have caused. If you get 2 years + inside for selling cannabis, why should you not be locked up for good after having destroyed 100s of thousands of people's livelihoods and causing immeasurable environmental problems for generations to come - all because you were too greedy to be careful?

A very large part of the problems in this world are caused by this sick idea, that there should be no regulation of business, no matter what; what it means is that companies get to stuff their pockets, and when it goes wrong, the taxpayer gets to pay the bill - it is no more than a convoluted for of theft.

I don't think you understand. Many of the people who voted for Obama in fact do expect him not only to be capable of solving this problem but to wiggle his nose while doing it. Most American politics revolve around the question of whether (a) the government should be entrusted and charged with solving all the world's problems or (b) the government should be run by people who know that that's a bad idea but are beholden to big business. You just can't get elected if you don't believe (a) or owe your soul to (b).

Sure, there is more that the federal government could be doing (e.g. containment booms, sandbars, etc.), but the main question we should be asking is not whether the government is doing enough, but why the government is spending taxpayer resources on things that do more to serve BP's PR problem than to serve the interests of citizens whose livelihoods have been affected by the ecological and economic damage.

For instance, government resources are being used to keep reporters from taking pictures of wildlife damaged by the oil spill. No democratic government has any business doing such a thing, and it most certainly serves BP's PR needs more than it serves the needs of the public. Why were government/military C-130s being used to distribute dispersants when coagulants would have made removing the oil easier? The only purpose served by dispersants is to reduce the appearance of that oil slick on damning satellite photos. Again: government resources are being used to serve BP's PR needs instead of the citizens' ecological/economic needs.

Getting angry at Obama for not personally swimming down there and plugging the leak with his thumb is stupid. Getting angry at Obama for not getting angry enough is stupid. People making these complaints are asking the wrong questions and complaining about the wrong things. Government should serve us first, and large multinational corporations only when doing so also serves our interests.

Last I checked, Obama doesn't have an engineering degree, and most of the people who do have experience with this kind of thing aren't employed by the Federal government. So I don't understand this desire for a nanny-state government that takes care of everything.

Last I checked (literally, it's been a few days), Obama was using his daughter in a "It's not the President's job, but he _could_ stop it with enough hope" message.

This country needs a point at the moon mission statement from Obama, but all he gives are let's all work together and figure this out, return to the past (republican/free market plan for healthcare from 1994? Seriously?), incremental nonsense that makes no one happy, and frustrates everyone. Obama's response to the oil spill is more of the same bland soup - and it's pissing people off. He doesn't have to stop the leak, but for the sake of this country, he needs to be a lot more bold, and take a stand on som

And do what? Rave and spit like a spoiled 5 year old? Throw a tantrum? Yell at people? Piss on the grave of some BP founder? Seriously, why do people want him to act like a spoiled angry kid? Are you that insane and irrational as to be incapable of even comprehending what rational responses to situations are?

And then you bitch about politicians not thinking ahead, caving in to interests and in all other ways acting like short sighted idiots. And when they don't, you're pissed because they're not acting like short sighted idiots. Lovely.

Yeah it sucks that he wants to have impact instead of just being bold. With the political climate in the change he CAN'T just switch the states to Canadian style or British style health care. He'd be crucified... perhaps even literally. At best if he tried that he wouldn't get assassinated or impeached. It wouldn't pass and he'd lose any political power he had.

I'll never understand arm-chair petroleum engineers. How easy do you think it is to drive a multi-ton robotic submersible a mile underwater using cameras that don't provide good depth perception to plug a hole spewing oil with a pressure exceeding 5,000 PSI? It can take days just to get the necessary materials down to that depth, let alone the many hours it takes to painstakingly navigate the machinery into place, and that's assuming you don't get too close to the ocean floor because the thrusters will stir up the mud and then you'll have to wait for it to settle so that you can see what you're doing...

How about a simple rule then: until you can do it then you don't get to fucking drill offshore?

We can avoid leaks. BP cut corners A LOT, big ones too and it fucked everything up. Perhaps this is a clear argument for GREATER GOVERNMENT REGULATION.

This has good parallels to the economy actually. Lowered government regulation led to stupidity which lead to massive failure. And when the democrats tried to pass stuff to stop it from repeating, even basic sensible shit the GOP tried to block it. This would be more of the same. Obama COULD push for fixing this problem as well. But it would hit the news as "Socialist leader dictates overbearing rules on how private corporations run their business". And he wants to be 'bipartisan/centrist' to bridge the divide between left and right... not really working out but its hard to blame him for that. Repeatedly annoying the right wouldn't help though.

You think that's bad! You should try explaining the macroeconomics, sociology, city planning, legal issues, trade issues, foreign relations issues, etc, etc, necessary for them to understand the issues facing the country to increase their chances of making intelligent choices when it comes time to vote for their elected officials! Phew!

That's not to say that the Feds should just ignore the problem. But there's little more that they can do aside from telling the doctor that he has to perform the surgery.

How about not distorting the market by putting liability caps on dangerous/destructive activities? How about taking over BP because its assets exceed the damage and selling said assets off to fund national oil independence? How about dragging these people off in chains so that the rest of their greedhead friends have the fear of God carved into their foreheads?

How about taking over BP because its assets exceed the damage and selling said assets off to fund national oil independence?

Do you know how big BP is? Its assets are worth 236B$ (according to wikipedia, as of 2009). This is going to be expensive, possibly in the billions of dollars, but I doubt they will have to sell anything, they had net income of 16.5B$ in 2009. As for the rest, I would say that legal action should be taken only after investigation, which is underway, and according to the actual evidence. The liability caps were not issued by the president (any president, by the way) but by the congress, and republicans there are currently blocking the attempt to remove them (claiming they should be increased, but not completely removed).

Yeah good idea, why not seize the assets of a foreign oil company, I'm sure that will go down well.

Hey, weren't you Americans crying not so long ago when Venezuela did just that to your oil company's assets over there over the past couple of years?

What about your precious Halliburton for their role in the disaster? or do they get away with it because they're an American company? How would you feel if Europe seized the assets of the likes of Halliburton for their crimes in Iraq? Or the likes of Microsoft and Apple for their market abuse? You'd probably be the first one complaining.

Seriously, the hypocrisy from Americans over the BP oil disaster is just disgusting.

This happened because you're an oil mad nation, and you want oil to remain unsustainably cheap on your shores. If you really want a solution look more towards getting yourself off your fucking national oil addiction, or at very least quit with the offshore drilling and accept the inevitable price hike that will cause.

I'm angry at BP too, but if you think BP is the only entity to be angry at you're mistaken- BP, Halliburton, Transocean, and just as importantly, the American public all equally deserve blame for this incident.

Why are so many Americans only concerned about the tragic effects your oil hunger can have when it effects you shores? What about the thousands of people who died for America's little oil adventure into Iraq and Halliburton's activities in Iraq that even put your own citizens needlessly in danger for the sake of keeping your oil cheap? Does it not matter when it happens elsewhere?

The fact is, the gulf oil spill happened too close to home, and Americans don't like to admit they collectively caused this, trying to deflect the blame entirely onto BP for a problem you caused is laughable.

Simple, I want Obama to push for a law that would require all offshore wells to have relief wells drilled PRIOR to striking oil. If there's a blowout, the solution is already in place.

I'd rather just see criminal charges with serious prison time made an option for screw ups that have major impacts. I don't want the government prescribing "what" to do. I just want them there saying, if you screw things up, you may not see life outside of prison ever again.

Do you think the guy on the rig would have said keep going after they found chunks of the blowout valve if he knew he may likely go to prison for the rest of his life for a careless decision? He might have, but there most likely would

Yes but half the downtime. You always double the chance of failure with redundancy. What it's there for is quick response. You're on slashdot so let me make an analogy: What costs you more?
1) A server's HDD dying, losing all data for the past day / week, and a day of downtime while you restore a backup?
2) A server's RAID1 array degrading and a day of slightly reduced performance as it is rebuilt fingers crossed that it won't fail and you won't have to rely on the above mentioned backup?

Honestly, if fixing an eventuality is that impossible maybe they shouldn't have been allowed to drill in the first place.

And yes I'm an armchair underwater mining engineer (but an actual, licensed, systems engineer) and I can't quite believe that BP can't drop a hundred tons of rock over the spill, I'm pretty sure they're trying to find the most "cost effective" way of dealing with it.

But what I seriously can't believe is that what is stopping is water too muddy to see. Don't we have radars and laser and x-rays, weaponizable grade sonars and of course GPS? And don't tell me GPS doesn't get that low, we can set up repeaters, heck we can tie a million ropes together if that helped. Shouldn't BP know exactly where the spill is? Surely they sent equipment back and forth the drilling site!

I'm obviously expecting to get my ass whooped by an actual mining engineer but I seriously struggle to believe our technology is that lame,

Also you seem intent on BP *not* paying the bill,exactly what do you want everybody to do? Giving them money with no strings attached?

Honestly, if fixing an eventuality is that impossible maybe they shouldn't have been allowed to drill in the first place.

It's actually well known how to best fix this. It just takes something like six months to implement it. Relief wells and a bottom kill. Granted it shouldn't have happened in the first place if BP didn't cut corners. The government oversight agencies didn't do their job, if we're lucky they were corrupt and not just institutionally incompetent. Hell, if I remember correctly, some countries require relief wells to be drilled while the main well is being drilled just in case.

Here's the thing, a lot of things can have horrid nearly irreparable damage if every single safety fails. We still use them. Nuclear power plants? Have fun with a Chernobyl. Dam? Have fun with a city eliminating flood if it bursts. Levies? Prepare to lose a city if they break in a hurricane. Chemical plants? Hope you can hold your breath for a few hours at least. Large office building? A fast fire, earthquake or errant airplane might kill you. Medicine? Just look at all the medical mistakes that happen, hard to bring the dead back to life. Automobiles? Well I think I don't need to go on.

And yes I'm an armchair underwater mining engineer (but an actual, licensed, systems engineer) and I can't quite believe that BP can't drop a hundred tons of rock over the spill, I'm pretty sure they're trying to find the most "cost effective" way of dealing with it.

100 Tons? If I did the math wrong you'd need somewhere over 1000tons to counter the pressure of the oil. Then it'd just leak out of somewhere else, it's mud down there, you think with that pressure the oil won't make it's own path out?

That said plugging the hole isn't that implausibly difficult. Plugging it so the pipe doesn't burst 100 feet down and leak oil out of every ocean floor crack within 500 feet is. That's what they're really worried about.

They're not being cost effective, they're being paranoid. What is happening now is bad. What can happen if they mess up is much worse.

Yet BP created a situation where the leak could occur and apparently had no decent backup plan. Of course, unless you count scrambling after the catastrophe racing to figure out a plan. I entirely understand why the arm chair engineers are totally pissed off. It doesn't take a petroleum scientist to realize BP fucked up--BIG TIME--and it's those "arm chair engineers" (the citizens) that are paying the price for it.

The only problem is that this is the equivalent of burning up all that oil -- it will use the same amount of oxygen, just that the carbon will be sequestered in the microorganisms. Now, those don't live forever, and will eventually die and break down. The question is: will there be something to eat those and buffer all the carbon? If not, how fast will those microorganisms break down, and how bad will be whatever's left over? Will there be other bacteria to devour that mess; if so -- are we going to get mas

Bemusingly, people that preach "government should be small" and "let the free-market take care of itself" and "businesses are more efficient at anything compared to government so get the government out" somehow seem to see no disconnect in complaining about how obama is handling the spill. shouldn't they rally for obama to get out of the way and let BP do it's thing? oh yeah, they're busy at another rally chanting "drill baby, drill".

on one hand, people want the government to act. on the other, they want to let free-enterprise "do it's thing". you can't have both.

Me?

I'm disappointed the oversight agency was in bed (turns out, literally) with whom it was overseeing. Massive failure of government.

The same company that had the resources and technology to drill that far below the sea level is now citing the fact that the reason it's hard to contain the damage is, well, it's so far below the sea level. If they saw necessary to create the tech to create a hole so far down, it's their responsibility to create the tech to plug that hole - depth perception, great depths etc. certainly didn't stop them when drilling. Massive irresponsibility of "free enterprise".

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if McCain/Palin wouldn't have been better. After all, they'd be more on the hook for the consequences than Obama because of the whole "Drill, baby, drill" campaign.

Every time I hear democrats, they make sure the blame lies squarely on BP (and not on themselves). Had the republicans won the presidency, there's no way they could have avoided blame.

I'm not trying to say that either side holds guilt in this matter (although there's plenty of blame to go around the government and industry), only that public perception of blame might be completely different. And that, in turn, might make a politician act completely different.

Um... 1.5% of a fund isn't going to ruin it. It'll take a big chunk out of the fund manager's bonus for this year, but not much worse.

Those with 6% or more are just reckless or lazy. Pension funds are supposed to be as safe as any stock vehicle can be: diversified and well hedged. I wouldn't berate them for losing 3% of their value because the economy tanked, but I would for losing 3% because one firm had a disaster of this magnitude and they didn't move out.

Uh, no, not even close. This isn't even close to being the worst oil spill in history [envirowonk.com], let alone the worst disaster in history. If the worst case scenario comes to pass... a spewing well until Christmas... then maybe this will make the top ten spill list. Second, this is oil, a natural substance, which even in its toughest form is a far cry from the chemical pesticides that Union Carbide leaked (and this leak is light sweet crude, not the much heavier grade of oil that was spilled at Valdez. It'll actually

No corporation should be allowed to grow large enough that it can't be drowned in a bathtub.

This is a great reappropriation of Norquist's infamous line, but I'm inclined to be a bit more long-winded.:)

Here's the thing: in the U.S., were not only the fortunate heirs of a constitution that's created a government of checks, balances, and somewhat limited powers. We're also the recipient of a national story about how our forbears fought for it and we're therefore generally free of state oppression. And whatever your complaints against the federal/state government (and there are some legit complaints), it's still historically true: if you live here, you have more civil liberties and economic freedoms than most of the people who've ever lived on this world. Doesn't mean we couldn't learn a thing or two from other countries, but here we are.

The thing is, that heritage handed to us through the efforts of patriots from the revolution through the cold war -- and just as importantly that national story -- has been forged in a time period during which sovereign states (and maybe a church or two) were essentially the only entities around which enough power could amass to systemically entrench itself into tyranny. When we justifiably celebrate the founding of the United States and its achievements, and when we invoke the language of the revolution... we're talking about the resolution of *that* war. The war fought to forge a modern state that safeguards its citizens from itself.

The world has changed, though. And the modern state isn't the only entity that now has enough power to infringe on your liberties. In fact, many modern states are less powerful than some other entities.

The reason we need a state in the first place is that private power can and will be abused as surely as government power can be. But if the national conversation over the last two years is any indication, we're still fighting the war against state power in our heads.

I don't think people quite appreciate how difficult it is to remove oil from the ecosystem when things like cleaning the birds [treehugger.com] is considered futile, the dispersant may be longer acting than the oil and the median time for complete recovery is looking to be in the decades. Any solution that does not prevent future blow outs from happening in the first place is far too expensive to justify, its sort of sad that it is cheaper just to ignore the gulf coast and fish and vacation somewhere else till the pollution dies down. It may make for good TV viewing but I for one would rather see them invest billions to prevent another disaster instead of making largely cosmetic changes to the gulf coast that may lull people into a false sense of security.

but... Gulf of Mexico... of the Gulf Stream, one of Earth's strongest currents. The oil isn't going to stay there, in the Gulf. Cuba, Jamaica, Bahamas, Florida's east coast, most of the US eastern seaboard, and probably even England and Western Africa will have some of BP's shit in their eyes, eventually.

Any solution that does not prevent future blow outs from happening in the first place is far too expensive to justify

Huh? I was under the impression that many jurisdictions have rules stating that relief wells must be drilled in advance. Granted, you'd still have a blow out, and it would probably take a few days to get the necessary equipment and supplies in place to perform the bottom kill, but the leak would be pretty short lived compared to what we are seeing today. Also, Shell is, as I write this, building containment domes over many of their wells that would significantly reduce the problem as well. So it seems to me that there are economical ways to reduce the impact such an event would have. Oh, and that's even ignoring the fact that the spill was caused because BP was breaking the rules that are already in place and cutting corners to save money.

please don't ever link to tree hugger to support your claims. everytime you do i'm forced to club a baby seal to balance out the bullshit they spew.

Please don't ever link to Fox News to support your claims. Every time you do, I'm forced to throw a capitalist running dog in the gulag... etc.

You see how stupid that sounds? If you have a problem with the source (which, BTW, links to a Der Spiegel article; perhaps you consider that to be Eurotrash socialist garbage, but in the real world, it's considered one of the most trustworthy mainstream news sources on the planet) then fine -- give a source you consider more credible, and say why.

Better yet, don't argue with the source, argue with the data. If you can.

I'd think that a more-or-less conglomerated area of oil will make recovery processes easier. I'd like to see these recovery processes footed by BP, and the resultant sale of the recovered crude denied BP and used instead to fund environmental cleanup.

At 15 miles x 3 miles x 600ft that's 21,314,566,152 cubic meters. At.5ppm (absolute minimum, from TFA), that's 10,657 cubic meters of pure oil. Google tells me that 10657 cubic meters converts to 67,030 barrels. This thing has been going on for 49 days now, so we're talking about at least 1367 barrels of oil per day in this plume alone.

Well, that seems like a lot less than the 20,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil figures that I've been reading on CNN, in the LA Times, and so on. Then again, I don't know how many of these plumes there are...but unless there are 15 - 95 of them....

Except what's the exact shape of the plume? Cubic? Spheroid? Most likely it's some sort of odd, elongated shape. Now what's the density of the oil at different points, is it mostly 0.5 ppm or does it vary greatly?

My point is that these sort of back-of-the-napkin calculations don't serve any useful purpose because they can be off by quite a bit. That's why we need a thorough scientific survey to come up with more detailed information than these simple numbers. Until we have that there's no use in throwing ar

for a bit, the big question has been: is the seabed there generally fractured so that the only real option to seal the leaks is nuclear explosives. BP does not like this question because they want to eventually make money off the oil field. Of course, there are a lot of questions they do not like.

Now I read that there are two fractures anyway.

Suppose it turns out we need nukes. There is significant preparation time. Just in case, we should already have been working on preparation. Things like engineer

We know the company operating the drilling platform was a separate company (owned by BP), is the BP company that has the drilling rights the main BP company or is it something like "BP Cayman Islands"?
Is it possible if the BP accountants and lawyers have done their jobs properly the amount of money that can be extracted from BP might be "capped"? - the US public could end up paying the bulk of the clean up costs while BP keeps operating in the US under a different name.

Given that this high-pressure Macondo oil field has been in existence for many years, and that other fields lie elsewhere under the oceans, could plumes occur naturally through some seismic or tectonic event? Is there any evidence of prior plumes? How did these play out?

Jimmy Harrell, a top employee of rig owner Transocean, was speaking with someone in Houston via satellite phone. Buzbee told Mother Jones that, according to this witness account, Harrell was screaming, "Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen."

Whoever was on the other end of the line was apparently trying to calm Harrell down. "I am fucking calm," he went on, according to Buzbee. "You realize the rig is burning?"

what's he supposed to do? throw on some snorkel gear and swim down and close it himself? The military already said they don't have the ability to manage an oil pipe that has the estimated 12,000psi that this thing is pumping out. They have said that the oil companies are far better equipped to deal with something like this. So what the F do you idiots that keep saying this bs want obama to do when the F'n oil companies that caused this problem aren't capable of fixing their own crap? Damn armchair engineer

While I agree with you completely... that wasn't his point. Whether or not Obama could have done anything is irrelevant; public perception of what he should be doing is what the post is complaining about.

Besides, this isn't just a problem of sealing the well -- there's the cleanup to deal with too. We can't just leave that up to BP. Make them pay later? Sure. But mobilize now to protect and prevent.

Maybe because Bush has far better ties to oil than Obama? Maybe because the dikes that failed were built by Army Corps of Engineers, employed by the US government? Maybe because there all there was to do with Katrina is to clean it up (It's not like the hurricane hovered there for months on end)? What do you want him to do, swim down 5000 feet and plug the hole with his huge biceps? If Bush were in office we'd probably be invading Great Britain right now.

If Bush were in office we'd probably be invading Great Britain right now.

That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. First off, Great Britain actually has ties to BP, so it wouldn't fit in with Bush's track record of going after completely unrelated entities a-la Afghanistan/Iraq style. Secondly, Great Britain would be far too obvious a target since they could actually be implicated in the BP fuck ups through corrupt officials. It would make much more sense for Bush to attack someone that has some cloudy, uncertain, unlinked nature with BP...someone like India. See, Great Britain a

Asking "where's the critcism?" means you haven't been paying attention. There's tons of criticism in mainstream press. I see it every day as I track the news on the spill.

Why's he getting off better than Bush did with Katrina? Well, probably because he sacked the MMS head who screwed up instead of telling her that she did "a heckuva job". Little things like appearing to recognize when somebody has not, in fact, done a heckuva job seems to count for something.

I want to see more housecleaning at MMS and I'm quite disappointed that there hasn't been signs of it, yet. But then there's the AG's criminal investigation, which if half the things said about what BP did and didn't do before the spill are true is warranted. And then there's that outside of mobilizing the Coast Guard, what can the government do about the spill itself? All the people who can actually do something about it are in private industry. We're not talking about ferrying people out of a flooded area, we're talking about fixing something in an environment where it's never been fixed before.

And while I would agree with the hypothetical comment that the government should take more direct control over the actions of the oil companies in order to fix it, that's actually not a simple thing to do. We already have plenty of critics even in Congress saying that the regulatory action Obama has taken and has promised to take are going to have a stifling effect on private industry in the gulf. Hey idjits, I want to say to them, if this is what they're going to do then I want to stifle the ever loving fuck out of them.

It's funny, because I think sacking the head of the MMS, while probably politically necessary, wasn't really a reasonable action.

Birnbaum took office on July 15 2009. She was taking over the most notoriously corrupt and ineffective agency in the Federal Government. The permits for DWH had already been issued, and the relaxation of safeguards that might have prevented the disaster had taken place six years earlier. Any revision of the policy could not have been made in time to prevent the disaster.

During and after Katrina everyone attacked Bush, often very personal attacks for the Federal and even state responses to that event.

True, and for good reason.

Yet here we are nearly two months after this started and there has been very little vitriolic attacking on the current President.

In the real world, actually, there have been very frequent, very vitriolic attacks on the current President, and a widespread labelling in the media of the spill as his Katrina, beginning very shortly after the spill began.

I think this oil spill is a little more abstract than seeing one of our continent's major cities inundated and its populace not only more or less abandoned but for the major response to be the allocation of armed troops to the area. Further, New Orleans and its black citizens have a bad history that would make people likely to be suspicious. Yes, this is a mess. But what exactly would have happened if Obama had said no offshore drilling? Wouldn't that have made Palin and other Republicans ecstatic for just

Sigh.... did you not pay attention to what people were blaming Bush for? Here, I'll list them out:1) Putting a guy in charge of FEMA who had been kicked out of his commissioner position at a Horse association2) Telling the head of FEMA "Heck'uva job, Brownie" when it was patently obvious that FEMA was bungling what little responsibility it had.

So far, the person in charge of the government organization that was supposed to monitor BP is gone, and there isn't anything legal that Obama can personally do to fi